child labor laws

Cultural  

1. Laws passed over many decades, beginning in the 1830s, by state and federal governments, forbidding the employment of children and young teenagers, except at certain carefully specified jobs. Child labor was regularly condemned in the nineteenth century by reformers and authors (see David Copperfield and Oliver Twist), but many businesses insisted that the Constitution protected their liberty to hire workers of any age. In several cases in the early twentieth century, the Supreme Court agreed, declaring federal child labor laws unconstitutional. Eventually, in the late 1930s, the federal Fair Labor Standards Act was upheld by the Court. This law greatly restricts the employment of children under eighteen in manufacturing jobs.

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Example Sentences

Jose said that some days he didn’t fill many boxes and earned less than minimum wage for the hours he worked, which would be a violation of state child labor laws.

From Los Angeles Times

A review of records from 2017 through 2024 for the department’s Bureau of Field Enforcement, which regulates child labor laws, shows that officials issued just 27 citations in the period for child labor violations to agricultural employers across California.

From Los Angeles Times

Enforcement of child labor laws has been inconsistent, the number of workplace safety inspections and citations issued to employers have dropped and repeat offenders were not fined for hundreds of violations of pesticide safety laws, according to a review of tens of thousands of state and county records detailing inspections, violations and money collected for civil penalties.

From Los Angeles Times

Back in the days before child labor laws — and before it became conventional wisdom that no young person could develop proper character without playing two dozen sports, mastering three instruments and maintaining a 4.0 GPA — I had the straightforward job of driving milk cows to our alfalfa field in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains for some limited high-protein grazing.

From Salon

As states consider loosening laws that regulate child labor, Lewis W. Hine’s early 20th century photographs, which helped child labor laws get passed, are worth our attention once again.

From Los Angeles Times